Does meditation coincide with a change in consciousness? Meditation is important in many religions. Nowadays, however, many non-religious people also engage in meditation. The best known meditation form is ' transcendental meditation' (TM) . TM would go hand in hand with deep relaxation, the disappearance of stress, an improvement in health, creativity and happiness.Meditation can be summarized as:do not think, buthave attention. Meditation often goes hand in hand with a special body posture. The goal is to make the body alert and relaxed, so that you can sit in the same position for a longer time. The most familiar posture is the lotus posture. With this posture, the back is held straight and people are encouraged to breathe from the abdomen instead of just from the chest. The goal is always to create stability and alertness. Sometimes the hands also adopt a specific posture during meditation. This way the hands can be placed on the knees, but that is not necessary. Research has not shown that certain hand positions have an effect. All forms of meditation have two things in common: (1) having attention and (2) not thinking. But what is attention paid to? If you do not want to think, then it does not work to force yourself not to think. If you do that, the suppressed thoughts will come back even more violently. Thoughts should not be suppressed, but be left on their course. There are two ways in which this can be achieved; through:open methods and concentration methods. Open meditation means that you are aware of everything that happens around you, but that you do not react to it. This is often done by keeping the eyes (half) open and by facing a white wall. This is often done in Buddhist meditation (zazen) .Mindfulness meditation is...
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Book Summary of Consciousness: An Introduction - by Susan Blackwell
What is the problem of consciousness? - Chapter 1
What is the world made of?
The problem of consciousness is related to some of the oldest questions of philosophy: what does the world consist of? Who am I? It relates to the mind-body problem: what is the relationship between the physical and the mental?
Despite the fact that we are learning more and more about the functioning of the brain, consciousness remains a mystery. In the past, they used the term 'élan vital' to explain how non-living things could be made alive. Nowadays this concept is no longer used, since we know that biological processes are responsible for this. Some scientists believe that the same will also happen with the term consciousness. Once we understand how brain processes create a sense of consciousness, then we might not need to use this term anymore.
Consciousness requires some sort of dualism: objectivity vs. subjectivity, inner vs. outer, mind vs. body...
For example: Take a pencil in your hand and look at it. You see the pencil from your own unique perspective, which you cannot share with others. The pencil is part of the outside world, your experience with the pencil is part of your inner world.
Philosophical theories
The way philosophers view the consciousness problem can generally be divided into monist theories, which suggest that there are one kind of things in the world, and dualist theories, which suggest that there are two kinds of things. Some theories state that the mental world is fundamental and some theories state that the physical world is fundamental.
Monism
Monistic theories assume that the world consists of only one kind of matter (body or mind). Some monistic theories state that everything consists of the mind, according to these theories we only have ideas and perceptions of a pencil. We do not know if a pencil really exists. People who assume this are called mentalists or idealists. Berkeley supported this principle. The disadvantage of this perspective is that we can never know for certain whether objects with fixed characteristics exist.
Materialists are also monists. They believe that there is only matter. An example for this is the identity theory, which states that mental experiences are the same as physical experiences. Another example is functionalism, which assumes that mental experiences are the same as functional experiences.
Epiphenomenalism assumes that physical processes cause mental events, but that mental events have no effect on physical events. Huxley was a supporter of this idea. He did not deny that consciousness or subjective experiences existed, but stated that they have no (causal) connection with physical processes. He used
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